by Amanda Lamb
“Okay, so I’ll head to the police department since they sent out the missing peacock bulletin. I’ve got to get the kids to school first. I can just meet Buster there.”
“Actually,” Janie hesitated.
Her hesitation wasn’t good. It never was. “So he’s going to be with Keri today since he knows the dead-guy-found story, because he was on it yesterday. We thought it would be easier to keep him working on that case so he can help her, since she’s new and all.” Janie paused, waiting for my reaction.
I knew this day would eventually come, the day Buster would be fed up with my animal stories and want to get back into the game, back to the sketchy, hardscrabble world of crime reporting. I couldn’t blame him. He had been a good sport for so many months, putting up with my quirky, often silly stories that had a surprising amount of humanity, but little edge. It was about time for him to jump back into the fire. I would be able to survive without him.
“It’s just for today,” Janie said, filling the silent gaping hole in our conversation. “And maybe tomorrow, well, you know, until we get an identity on the guy and stuff. Dex just thinks it makes sense. I put you with Jeremy.”
Jeremy was a young, affable photographer who was pleasant enough and did whatever I asked him to do. He was also just young enough and just green enough to still care about the artistry of video, which made every story just a little bit better. Older photographers had that desire squeezed out of them by an industry that prided itself on lauding speed over creativity.
I was happy to work with Jeremy. Also because we had no emotional ties like I did with Buster, it would be an easy, breezy day with no head games. Just what I needed.
“Great, tell him I will see him there at ten o’clock.”
“Will do,” Janie said, her voice dripping with palpable relief that I had not imploded.
She was used to dealing with lots of difficult personalities. Reporters didn’t get to be good journalists by being agreeable.
I looked at the kids, happily eating their breakfast. Miranda was reviewing for her science test, her laptop open on the table next to her. Blake was looking at his phone, playing some video game that beeped constantly. My steaming hot coffee sat on the counter in front of me, inviting me to sip it slowly, maybe in the chair by the window where I could see the magnolia trees, which surrounded my back porch, in full springtime bloom.
For just a moment, all was right with the world. But I was knew it wasn’t going to last.
O
As I was pulling out of the driveway, I heard my phone vibrate. I wanted to ignore it, but I was afraid it was the newsroom reaching out to tell me something had changed. I stopped the car, put it in park, and clicked on the new email on my phone. It was from Janie, telling me that before I went to the peacock story, she needed me to “swing by” a press conference about human trafficking. Swing by was a euphemism used by newsroom managers to make it seem like we were just picking up a gallon of milk on our way to another story. It insinuated that our job was so easy we barely had to stop the car, let alone slow down, to cover an event. In reality every story, even a press conference, required more than just a swing by. It required setting up equipment—the camera, the tripod, lights, microphones. It required listening, getting information, gathering facts, and understanding those facts. It also required talking to people, getting their names and titles, asking them questions, keeping them on topic, and doing it all quickly and diplomatically.
“Sure,” I fired back at Janie, knowing it wasn’t the hill I wanted to die on today.
Triage, triage, triage, I said to myself, repeating my calming mantra. I was pretty sure Deepak Chopra never said triage in his head while meditating.
I put the address of the press conference in my GPS and backed out of my driveway. It would be a slight detour in my day, but I was calmed that affable Jeremy would meet me at the event.
As I pulled onto the highway, my phone rang again. I hit the answer button on the screen on my dashboard.
“Maddie, its Suzanne,” she said, urgently
“Suzanne, I am sorry I haven’t been in touch. Work has been crazy, but I haven’t forgotten about you.”
“It’s okay. I totally understand. I just wanted you to know that it’s finally over. He’s gone.”
“Wow, that’s good, right? What happened? How are you?”
“He just up and left me before I could tell him I was leaving him. So it’s finally over for real. For good. Such a relief. You don’t even know.”
“Did he say anything?”
“Yes, he just told me it was over and that there was someone else. I’m assuming it’s that slut, Maria. The one who he probably got pregnant. Don’t know, don’t care. He didn’t say who it was. He was in the doorway with a suitcase when I got home night before last. It was very civil, to tell you the truth. No yelling. No anger. We both handled it like adults.”
“Wow, that’s amazing. Are you okay?”
“Surprisingly, I am. I’m just so relieved. He didn’t tell me where he was going, but he said his lawyer would be in touch and that he would make sure I was taken care of. He told me Winston was better off with me, and that he did want to be a part of his life, but that Winston needed his mother more than he needed Tanner.”
“Wow, it sounds like an almost perfect parting of ways,” I said, barely able to hide my confusion and surprise.
This didn’t make any sense if Tanner was really the awful man she had described. But it did make sense if he was the kind man I had met in the doctor’s office. My guess was that the truth lived in the gray area. He was some combination of these two Tanners.
“I was really scared when I saw him holding the suitcase. I mean, so many things went through my mind. I was like, this is it, he’s going to take me down on his way out the door. But it was as if all the anger inside him just disappeared in an instant. He suddenly seemed very reasonable, even happy for the first time in a long time. Maybe he’s in love with the other woman, whoever she is, I don’t know. Maybe it’s enough to change him.”
If he left Suzanne and he left Maria, where was he? Where did he go? Was there another woman? A third woman? It was a mystery, but at least he had left Suzanne without incident. That was the important thing. And if the parting was as amicable as she described it, he no longer sounded like a threat to her, which meant all the angst I had been feeling about her situation could now fade away. I could stop worrying about her.
“Suzanne, that’s great. I’m so happy for you. I really am.”
“Thanks, Maddie. I want you to know I really appreciate everything you did for me—coming to the hospital after the race, listening to me without judgment, trying to help me extricate myself from this awful marriage. You’ve been an amazing friend. I will never forget your kindness.”
“I really didn’t do anything, seriously. I’m just glad he’s gone and that you are safe. That’s the important thing.”
It was turning out to be a better day than I could have ever imagined. Over the years, I had covered horror stories that involved crumbling marriages and poorly executed exit strategies. Often these involved wives throwing their wedding albums into a fire or keying their husband’s fancy midlife-crisis sports cars. It sounded like Suzanne and Tanner had no such drama. Her parting was the rarest of all, one rooted in mutual respect for their shared history and the love of their child.
“No, that’s not true. I can never thank you enough. I can finally breathe again. He even said Winston and I can stay in the house. He isn’t going to fight me on that. It’s a miracle. I’m so happy that I even made a new goal today. I’m going to run my first full marathon. Training starts today!”
“Wow, that’s amazing. What a great goal. I’m happy for you. I really am.”
After we hung up, the Australian male voice on my GPS informed me that I had passed my exit and it was rerouting me. I was trying to focus on where I was going, but I couldn’t get the conversation with Suzanne out of my head. She was f
ree. It was unbelievable. I was cautiously optimistic that she was out of danger, but there was still a nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach, something I couldn’t identify. It was the same feeling I got when I thought back to the night my mother was killed. It was an unsettled feeling, and I didn’t like it one bit.
O
Jeremy was already set up at the press conference when I arrived. He had put the microphone on the podium and carved out a spot for his camera and tripod in between two other photographers a few feet from where the speaker would stand. As I walked through the door, a young woman in a sleek black business suit handed me a press packet and gestured for me to sit in the front row of chairs with the other reporters.
“Here’s some information about our organization, plus some statistics about human trafficking in our area and across the state. We’re going to get started in just a moment,” she said, with a beaming smile beneath bright blue hipster glasses.
Her light brown hair was pulled back into a severe bun. I could tell she was trying to look older and perhaps more serious than her smattering of freckles and youthful smile indicated. She gestured with a wide sweep of her arm for me to sit in the first row of metal folding chairs near the podium.
I followed her directions and sat down in the front row, making brief eye contact with Jeremy, who smiled and nodded back at me. I opened the packet and started to leaf through it. I simply needed the basics—a few numbers I could use to make a graphic, a definition of human trafficking that our viewers could understand, and a soundbite from a speaker at the podium, explaining the scope of the problem in our area.
I hadn’t covered the issue extensively, but I knew enough to ask the right questions. Human trafficking is defined as anytime people are forced to perform services against their will for no compensation. The most common form of labor trafficking involved migrant workers on farms across the state, being forced to work in the fields for little or no money. But human trafficking in the city mostly involved the sex trade. Women were being sold for sex in online platforms. Their captors held them by force or fear in local hotel rooms where the women performed sexual acts for money, money that went right into their captors’ pockets. This looked like prostitution, but the women were the victims of these men, not criminals. Sometimes the victims were children who were being sold by their parents for money or drugs.
The organization holding the press conference was called Stop Human Trafficking in its Tracks. Their goal was to educate people about human trafficking so they would know what to look for and report it to police when they spotted it.
As various people walked up to the podium to speak about their roles in helping to combat human trafficking, I glanced at the information sheet for the group, scanning their mission statement for key facts I could use in my brief story. I ran my finger down the page, reading the impressive list of board members—movers and shakers in the community who had admirably taken on this cause. Most of the names rang a bell, but one jumped off the page—Tanner Pope. I surveyed the room, looking for his face, but I realized he wasn’t there. This once again confirmed my belief that he seemed like a good man, considering he was involved in such a worthy cause. But what did his absence mean? Where in the world was Tanner Pope?
O
“They spotted him.” Janie said excitedly.
It took me a minute to realize she was talking about the peacock and not Tanner. Obviously she knew nothing about Tanner, and was talking about Piper the peacock. My overworked brain was getting so mixed up. The other day I told Buster I needed to stop and get gas in my car, and he said, “But we’re in my car. How is that going to work?”
“Piper, he’s stopping traffic up on the 510. It’s crazy.” Janie finally exhaled. “We’ve got the helicopter flying over it. Need you and Jeremy to break away from that presser and get up there as fast as you can.”
Human trafficking, the missing Tanner Pope, a peacock on the run. My head was spinning. Little fires everywhere. There was no room for inflexibility. I had to shift gears. It wasn’t easy for a planner like myself to handle these abrupt transitions, but I had learned how to cope after many years of walking through hot coals.
“Okay, we’ll head that way.” I replied, having learned a long time ago that griping about the constantly changing landscape of television news assignments meant you needed to find another job.
“Great. Thanks so much.” Janie replied with appreciation for not having to stroke a reporter’s fragile ego.
“My pleasure.”
I decided to leave my car in the parking lot of the building where the press conference was and jump in Jeremy’s news car so we could get to Piper faster. As we got closer to the spot on the highway that was blocked off, it became clear that we might miss the entire event while stuck in traffic. Without discussing it, Jeremy jerked the steering wheel hard to the left and drove into the median and parked. He did exactly what I was thinking we should do. We jumped out, put on our yellow safety vests, and started walking past the traffic barricades. I just had my phone and notepad, but Jeremy slung his camera over one shoulder and balanced his tripod on the other as we carefully moved along the narrow side of the road.
I heard the peacock before I saw him. He made a high-pitched squawk which took me off guard because I didn’t know peacocks made any sounds. I also didn’t know they flew until I saw Piper, with his massive wingspan, glide above four lanes of traffic and land on the median about fifty feet from us. Jeremy had quickly set up his camera and was now quietly shooting video of Piper’s dramatic approach. I stopped and froze, trying not to spook the bird.
“Don’t move,” Jeremy whisper, behind me.
“I’m not,” I whispered back.
While the cars were behind a line of police vehicles, drivers were leaning out of their windows with their phones, trying to get their own video of the magnificent Piper. A woman in a brown uniform with Animal Control written on the back was inching toward the peacock. She had a large padded glove on one hand and a long stick with a crook on the end in the other hand. She looked very professional, like she knew what she was doing, but at the same time I didn’t think local animal control officers were used to wrangling peacocks.
As the officer crept closer, Piper stared at her with what appeared to be more curiosity than fear. Behind the female officer, another animal control officer was also tiptoeing, carrying a metal cage and trying not to rattle it. When the pair got within a few feet of Piper, the peacock turned right and scurried across the lanes of traffic on the other side of the median and into the woods. We lost sight of him.
For the story, it didn’t matter if Piper was caught or not; what mattered was that we got the video of a peacock shutting down a highway. Video that would no doubt go viral on social media as soon as we posted it. Jeremy and I turned around and I started putting the microphone into the windows of the drivers behind us, asking them if they were annoyed by the inconvenience, or amazed by the show.
“I have never seen anything like that,” said a man in a shiny, white Lexus. “Amazing, just amazing. Better than the Discovery Channel.”
“Seriously shutting down the highway for a damn bird,” said a woman in a brown sedan with dents in the side. She threw her cigarette butt past me, onto the pavement, the bright red ember still glowing after it hit the ground. “Some of us got to work.”
The animal control officers admitted in their interviews that this was a first for them—peacock chasing. The highway was reopened a few minutes after Piper disappeared into the woods. The officers told us the one thing they did know about wild birds was that if they didn’t want to be captured, it was almost impossible to bring them in. As long as Piper wasn’t causing a public nuisance, there was no need to capture him.
“We had these bird gloves mostly to deal with injured owls, hawks, and the occasional eagle…” said the female animal control officer. “...But peacocks are rare, not what we’re used to. Did our best. Fast bird. We really didn’t have a chance.” Sh
e shook her head in a display of defeat.
I could still detect longing in her voice since she had been so close to catching Piper.
Not unlike Piper, Tanner had pulled his own disappearing act, and just like a wild bird, it was obvious that he did not want to be found.
O
“Thanks for meeting with me,” Keri said, as I slid into the chair at the small rickety table in front of the coffee shop, next to the television station. I moved the full ashtray from the middle of our table to another table next to us. She had texted me during the peacock fiasco and asked me if I would meet with her for a few minutes after work.
“No problem. Happy to help. What’s going on?”
“Well, there’s this weirdness about identifying the body of the man they found the other day.”
I could tell Keri was nervous about talking to me. It was as if she were trying to figure out whether I might be envious of her taking over my beat. What she didn’t understand was that it was my choice to change assignments, and that I wanted nothing but for her to be successful. I was more than happy to help her and hoped I could put her mind at ease.
“Well, by now, they may know who it is,” I said. “But if that’s the case, there must be a reason why they aren’t releasing the information.”
“That’s what I think, too!” Keri said, with the excitement of a teenager.
“So you have to figure out why they won’t release it. Usually they hide behind the excuse that they haven’t been able to locate and notify next of kin. Have they said anything like that?”
“Nope total silence, nothing. We’re still waiting on that composite they promised us, the one they said they were going to use to ask for the public’s help in identifying him.”
“Okay, well keep asking for that, because they did promise that yesterday. I can make some calls and see if I can find out anything.”
“That would be great!” Keri exclaimed with too much enthusiasm and then covered her mouth quickly out of embarrassment.
She looked around. Nobody was paying attention to us. They had their eyes buried in their cell phones.